


Spring Cleaning

by swamp_adder



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Dirk hates himself, Gen, Strider Manpain, What else is new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 16:12:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7539298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swamp_adder/pseuds/swamp_adder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk sorts through some of Bro's old things and contemplates his other self's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring Cleaning

You weren’t sure exactly what to expect from Dave’s apartment, but you’re most surprised by how _familiar_ it seems – even apart from being literally the same building.  Puppets, magazines, gaming equipment and bladed weaponry are scattered haphazardly over every available surface.  Not that different from your place, really.

Your own house was destroyed in the battle, along with most of your planet.  Your only remaining belongings are whatever you happened to have in your sylladex at the time.  Dave has no use for most of his Bro’s stuff and has said you can take whatever you want; he’ll probably throw away the rest.  Figuring you might as well rescue Dave from the onerous task of cleaning the place out himself, you’ve gone ahead and begun the process of collecting all the junk in the downstairs rooms and dividing it into stuff to keep, stuff to toss and stuff whose fate Dave will probably want to decide on himself.

As you sort through the artifacts of another life you might have lived – the puppet snuff films, the _Saw_ parody comics, exactly the kind of stuff your sick sense of humor _would_ dream up – you find yourself viewing them through the eyes of a confused and neglected kid for whom this fucked-up shit represents the only real connection he has to his guardian, and your initial amused interest soon fades into a familiar sense of shame.

When your investigation reaches the kitchen, you're surprised to find that about half the appliances aren't working.  Well, you can fix them.  It baffles you though that other-you didn't bother to keep this stuff in working order.  But then he was after all surrounded by the infrastructure of an entire living and breathing city -- he wasn't going to starve just because his fridge didn't work.  Having functioning machinery wouldn't have been a life-or-death matter as it was for you.

It really says something about you, you reflect, that your other self's neglect of the household appliances comes as a greater shock to you than his neglect of the human being he shared them with.

Absently, you pick up one of the smuppets lying neglected on the floor – a green one, crowned with a tuft of orange hair and smiling at you from under its friendly googly eyes and enormous schlong nose – and your depressed mood is lifted by a pang of fond nostalgia.  Its design is uncannily similar to the ones you spent so many lonely hours constructing as a kid – your first attempt at filling your isolated home with false humans, little pseudo-people whose silent presence offered a comforting illusion of companionship.

 _There is NO shred of doubt in my mind that he loved all those puppets more than me._ Dave’s voice, raw with anger, echoes in your mind.  Disgust roils up in your gut.  Believing that something sewn from felt and cotton could _ever_ substitute for a human being is just one more of the (endless, myriad) things wrong with you.

You toss the toy onto the trash pile, and don't look back.


End file.
